Unraveled Together (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

Miranda, the Present

40 Central Park South, Manhattan

By the time I hit the doorbell at Warren's apartment, I'm so angry at the memory of what he did to me all those years ago that when he opens the door, it is all I can do to stop myself from socking him.

One look at him, though, is enough to prevent me from doing that.

Although he's dressed from head to foot in black leather, including leather gloves, which should afford him an air of masculinity and dominance, in the past ten years he has been transformed from a healthy, virile sportsman into a much older-looking man.

“Miranda, all grown up now, and so beautiful . . .” he says, and leads me into the living room, where the same old bullwhip is still hanging over the fireplace.

I get straight to the point.

“Who was the man who warned you off from seeing me, and why did he do it?” I say.

“Warned me off, honey? This was far more than warning me off, I can assure you. Sit down, have some Bolly, and let me show you what that bastard did to me,” he says.

He holds up his left hand. Then slowly, ever so slowly, as if he were a magician, he peels off his left glove. To reveal that the index finger is severed at the second joint.

“The monster did that to me, with a carving knife. ‘See her again, and I'll cut you much lower,' ” he says.

I'm lost for words.

Why would some strange man have cared if I was seeing Warren? And if he did, why would he go this far to stop him from seeing me? If my life depended on it, I don't have an answer.

All I know is that if I don't reassure Warren, he'll probably clam up and I won't get any closer to unmasking the “monster,” or to understanding his motives.

“I'm sure that after all this time, the monster doesn't permanently lurk outside the building, and even if he does, I was wearing a white-blonde wig, and he wouldn't have even recognized me. So you really ought to relax,” I say.

Warren thinks for a long moment.

“Okay, honey. I guess you're right. I guess enough time has gone by, and the monster is probably a million miles from here by now. Let's have some Bolly. To us, honey!” he says, and raises his glass.

To us?

Old as he now seems, something of the handsome, brilliant millionaire—with eyes as blue, piercing, and cold as the eyes of the most dominant dominant—still remains, and the cumulative effect doesn't leave me cold.

Nonetheless, I belong to Robert. And even if I never see him again in my life, I always will.

“You aren't toasting us, Miranda?” Warren says.

“Warren, I loved you once, but that was so long ago, and we can't go back,” I say.

His eyes flash fire, and he shakes me with the strength and passion I remember from our time together. He shakes me so hard that I'll bet that my arm will be black and blue by tomorrow, and I don't like it at all.

Meanwhile, he is in full flow: “Of course we can go back, of course we can. Ten years have gone by, and you are right, that monster is long gone, so from now on we can do exactly what we want together,” he says.

I shake my head, still don't toast him, but take some more Bolly anyway. Not just to be polite but because even though I'm not going to toast “us” (there never can be an us; there never will be an us, because even though I may never see Robert again in my life, he is in my heart and my mind, and all my love and my loyalty, my body and my soul belong to him), I quite simply need a drink.

“Warren, I can't.”

His face is a mask, his voice frosty.

“So you've got someone else?”

“Not anymore.”

His eyes light up again and blaze at me.

“It all came back to me the second I saw you again, just as if we had never been apart. Who you are, what you are, what you could be to me, and how you would make my life complete. We have a future, my darling, and what a future! All I ask right now is that you listen to me,” he says.

I've got nothing better to do right now, nowhere to go, no one to listen to, nothing, except my regrets and my longing for Robert.

“Tell me then, Warren,” I say, and give him a faintly encouraging smile.

“You move into my new bedroom, right away,” he says, then presses a button and the mirrored wall slides back to reveal a bedroom three times bigger than my apartment, with a skylight, mirrors everywhere, a massive four-poster bed, glamorous, luscious, beautiful, but apart from the fact that it reminds me a little of Robert's bedroom on the Dreamliner, the ostentatious luxury leaves me cold.

“You'll have a free run of the apartment, all three floors of it, servants, a chauffeur-driven car, the house in the Hamptons, all of it will be yours, ours. And then, Miranda, you can start living out your true self at last,” he says.

I look at him uncomprehendingly.

“From the moment that I met you all those years ago at your father's wedding, and you were so sweet, so shy, so clearly wounded by the fact that your father was treating you so coldly and the actress bitch he was marrying obviously didn't give you the time of day, I knew who and what you were.

“You and I exchanged glances, just for a second, then you blushed pink, and cast your eyes down so submissively that it was all I could do to stop myself from kidnapping you then and there and taking you home with me.

“But we were at Luke's wedding, so I couldn't, and instead we sat facing each other across the room, and every time I gazed into your eyes, which was most of the time, you blushed and looked away from me.

“I hadn't said a single word to you, but already I had you, and I knew it. So afterward I gave you a ride to the reception. And you were so sweet, so lovely, so concerned about my little dog, Polly, whom I'd left in the car during the wedding.

“ ‘Aren't you going to feed her?' you said, so kind, so considerate.

“And I, in my best villain style, which I used because I sensed that you would like it, said, ‘I prefer to keep my women and dogs hungry.'

“You looked back at me, with those big blue eyes of yours, and on your chest I saw a red flush, and then I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was right, you were a submissive. And not just the run-of-the-mill kind of submissive, either. A deep and natural one.”

I sit there, listening to him, mesmerized, despite myself, yet feeling disloyal to Robert that Warren saw the same thing in me that he did, the thing that I want to give to Robert and no one else, and that in telling me so Warren is arousing me. When I don't want to be aroused by anyone but Robert.

Warren shakes a lock of hair from his forehead, leans toward me, and takes my hands in his. Looking at them, I see that they are quite small, a detail I've long forgotten about him, and that next to Robert's they look feminine. He doesn't come close to Robert in masculinity. No other man ever has, no other man ever will.

“Yes, Miranda, we had only spoken a few words, but as soon as I got you alone, I took you through a few standard scenarios, each designed to help me evaluate your true potential as a submissive and to work out exactly how I could use your submission to fuel my pleasure and enhance my life.

“In fact, I probably tested you far more rigorously than was ­really necessary. Primarily because of the fun of it, of seeing you blanch, resist, then surrender and flourish.

“And as I tested you, it became clear to me that you were the type of submissive made for a domestic discipline relationship, the kind of relationship I'd always intended to implement with a receptive and willing submissive. But only a very special kind of submissive, I knew, would be able to knuckle under the sustained regimen of instruction, correction, and discipline that I intended to impose on her.

“I could sense at once that you were that special kind of submissive, a submissive created to submit under conditions of domestic discipline, to be ruled over by a man with authority, severity, and who exuded the moral imperative to take you in hand and give you the love and the punishment, the guidance and the framework in which you would blossom.”

“A framework? Like some kind of a painting,” I say, playing dumb just to draw this out, because I am starting to enjoy all the hoops he is jumping through for me.

“Very funny. But domestic discipline isn't a joke. And when it works well, it can be heaven for the disciplinarian and the disciplinee. If it works . . .”

“So how does it all work? I mean, how would it all begin?” I say, in the kind of voice I used as a child when I asked my father to please tell me a story, a story about the three bears and Goldilocks, or the one about Hansel and Gretel and the witch.

He smiles, and for a second his smile is the smile of a younger man, the man I once knew and loved.

“With a question: Tell me, Miranda, what is it that you would like to change about yourself, what would you like to improve, what would you like to learn, enhance?” he says, and unscrews his fountain pen, poised to record my words in a large Cartier notebook by the side of the couch.

He's obviously serious about this. I want to get out of here, I don't want to play this game. But then again, I've heard of domestic discipline relationships, but I've never met anyone who was in one, and certainly not someone who wanted to have one with me. Curiosity killed the cat, they say, and so I decide to answer.

“I'd like to learn to play squash well,” I say, thinking of Robert and praying that one day I'll have the opportunity to play against him and give him a run for his money, at that.

Warren nods approvingly.

“I'd like to exercise more, go to the gym more,” I say.

He runs his eyes over my body.

“Great figure, Miranda, particularly in that clinging black-and-white dress. In fact, your figure is even better than it was all those years ago. Still, there is always room for improvement . . .” he says, and gives a sidelong glance at the bullwhip.

“And I'd like to learn to swim, as well,” I say as my grand finale, then flash to the mausoleum on Hartwell Island and wonder for the tenth time whether if I'd been able to swim I might have managed to swim across Hartwell Lake to dry land and Robert. Robert. Everything I think or feel always leads back to Robert. How will I ever survive without him?

Warren slices through my thoughts.

“To summarize: once we embark on our relationship in earnest, I shall give you a daily schedule involving squash lessons, and practice, gym times, and length of training in the gym, plus I'll hire a strict trainer who'll drive you hard, and then I'll arrange swimming lessons for you.”

“And if I do well?”

“If you do well, your reward will be that you've pleased me,” Warren says.

“And if I don't?”

“The first and heaviest punishment you'll receive will be the punishment that will cause you more pain than any other. The pain of knowing that you have displeased and disappointed me,” he says.

“The first? So what will be the second?” I ask, despite myself. Mostly out of curiosity, but also because, somewhere deep inside of me, I still nurture the hope that Robert will one day forgive me and take me back, and that then I can relay to him everything I've learned about domestic discipline from Warren. Although Robert being Robert, I'll bet he already knows far more about it than Warren ever did.

“The second punishment will be whatever I decide it will be at the time. All I know is that whatever I decide to inflict on you, you will love every minute of it, and crave more,” he says.

He's right. I would. But with Robert, only with Robert.

“You'll be so happy, Miranda, so content. We'll never argue, as arguing with me will bring such a harsh punishment that you won't want to incur it. You'll never want to contradict me, because contradicting me will incur yet more punishment. You'll never displease me, because your nature is tuned to please the dominant in your life in every way, in every detail, and to submit to discipline from him without any complaint.”

“What kind of discipline, other than spanking, would you want to inflict on me, Warren?” I ask, just for the hell of it, just in case he has any ideas I can remember, and then . . .

“Master, Miranda, I'm your Master.”

Dream on . . .

“Not yet, Warren. I haven't agreed.”

“You haven't got any choice. Not because I'm not letting you have one, but because your deepest nature dictates that when you meet a truly dominant man you lose all will and are left with no option but to capitulate to his every demand and to become slave to his every whim,” he says.

“So you're saying that I'm a doormat?”

He throws back his head and roars with laughter.

“You are the very last woman in the world to be a doormat, Miranda. That's one of the things that's so special, so different about you. Unlike a thousand submissives, you have obviously developed into a grown woman with a strong will and a mind of your own.”

“But if my will is so strong . . . ?”

“That's the whole point; your will is so powerful, your independence is so deep, you are so much your own woman that now you have made the brave and fearless decision to dedicate that strong will to me, to this relationship, to pleasing me in every way, to obeying me 24/7, to serving me, catering to me, and accepting discipline from me whenever and wherever I dictate; you will succeed brilliantly.”

He's right. And wrong.

“Warren, I love everything you've just told me. In fact, you've really turned me on. The whole concept turns me on and yes, you are right, I probably am made to live out my life under the rule of a strong and decisive man who won't hesitate to discipline me at every turn and for my own good. The only thing, I'm afraid, is this: you aren't that man, Warren.” I say, then get up and stalk toward the door. Just before I slam it behind me, I glance over my shoulder at him.